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Patriotic March in "The Odd Candidate"

Thu, 03/28/2013 - 08:10 — JaclynMcKewan

Reader dperez asked:

In the Season 5 episode of the "Odd Couple" titled "The Odd Candidate" there was background music played over a montage of Oscar running for office and making speeches. The music kind of sounded like a John Philip Sousa march but it may have been created by another composer. Do you know the name of this musical composition?

My email reply bounced, so dperez, if you're out there, I hope you see this!

Upon watching my DVD of the episode, I saw that there were two such montages. One at about the 15 minute mark, and then at the 20 minute mark. I wasn't sure which one dperez was asking about, but I knew that the 20 minute one was indeed by John Philip Sousa - it was "Stars and Stripes Forever." The one at the 15 minute mark was more challenging. I watched the clip several times to make sure I would remember the tune, and then tried to find a match. Browsing some websites that had recordings of march music, I finally found it: "American Patrol" by F. W. Meacham.

It looks like the most famous recording of this song was by the Glenn Miller orchestra, which has much more of a "big band" sound than the one used in the Odd Couple episode. But listening to some of the more march-oriented versions available on YouTube, they definitely sound like the one used in this episode.